Thirty-six percent of the 305 million people who are 6 months or older had received the vaccine by early November, an increase of 3.5 percent over the same period last year, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last season, about 43 percent of those eligible for vaccine in the U.S. received it, including 41.9 percent in Georgia and 46.7 percent in South Carolina.

Last year was the first year the vaccine was recommended for everyone age 6 months and older.

Some progress has been made in priority groups, such as health care workers and pregnant women, officials said.

Before the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, 15 percent or less of pregnant women would get a flu shot every year; that number shot up to 50 percent during the pandemic and stayed at 49 percent last year, the CDC has reported.

About 43 percent of pregnant women report being vaccinated so far, about the same rate as last year, Schuchat said. About 63 percent of health care workers have received the flu shot, an increase of 7 percent over the same time last year, said Dr. Howard Koh, the assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services.

The level of flu remains low across the country, with Georgia reporting none through late last month. Illness typically picks up after the holidays, though.

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"Last year was the first year the vaccine was recommended for everyone age 6 months and older."

Why did U.S. health authorities change the vaccination protocol?

1. Is it the case that vaccines, today, are more effective so that the old cost v. benefit calculus has been updated?
2. Just how much federal money is to be poured into the vaccine labs as a result of the call for universal vaccination? For this matter, how much higher will be the incomes of medical providers and others who administer the vaccine?
3. Given the hype over the H1N1 flu bug that led to massive ramping-up of vaccine production and administration while the so-called 'pandemic' killed many fewer than the regular flu, should the public just accept the authority of health officials, this time?
4. Yes, as they say, "It's only MONEY!" But they also say that massively funding marginally effective therapies necessarily deprives the administration of more effective health care initiatives; and that causes more folks to die from communicable diseases than would have been the case if the media and the public asked a few questions.

Researchers findings about the flu vaccine, which topple the mainstream concept of their safety and effectiveness are:
 "Vaccination had…no effect on hospital admissions or complication rates."
 "Vaccine use did not affect the number of people hospitalized or working days lost."
 "The analysis showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions…"
 "There is no evidence that [influenza vaccines] affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission." — Meaning vaccines do not affect transmission of disease, what they are designed for.
 "In average conditions (partially matching vaccine) 100 people need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms."

How many unused does of the H1N1 vaccine were thrown away? At what cost to the public health system? How many routine TNA's, APPX, and other significant cases could have been treated with the money wasted on the 'immunize them all for the flu' effort? Just asking, but not expecting any answers ...